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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine

A one trick pony does his one trick

It’s funny, but it’s only been one week since I expressed extreme skepticism that that wretched hive of scum and quackery, The Huffington Post, had reformed itself. The reason, of course, was that HuffPo had announced that it was starting a science section. Even though on the surface it seemed that HuffPo was making the […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Tactics and tropes of the antivaccine movement

I’ve been an observer and student of the antivaccine movement for nearly a decade now, although my intensive education began almost seven years ago, in early 2005, not long after I started blogging. It was then that I first encountered several “luminaries” of the antivaccine movement both throughout the blogosphere and sometimes even commenting on […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine

Microsoft, Merck, and Bill Gates: Eugenicists?

Since I wrote about a man who is arguably the biggest seller of quackery on the Internet, namely Joe Mercola, yesterday, I thought I’d turn my attention to someone who is arguably another of the biggest promoters of quackery on the Internet, namely Mike Adams of NaturalNews.com. If Joe Mercola is proof positive that quackery […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Medicine

Yes, Virginia, there is an antivaccine movement (efforts to deny it notwithstanding)

There are times when I want to fall down on my knees and give thanks for certain cranks. I mean, where would my blogging material come from, were it not for antivaccine loons, quacks, cranks, creationists, and animal rights terrorists providing me with an unending stream of blog fodder? Were they all to disappear, I’d […]

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery

Andrew Wakefield hits up his supporters for cash

Any regular reader of this blog knows who Andrew Wakefield is. He’s the British gastroenterologist who almost singlehandedly ignited a panic about the MMR vaccine (well, not quite single-handedly; the sensationalistic British press helped a lot) with his shoddy, fraudulent research linking the MMR vaccine to “autistic enterocolitis” and then later to autism itself. Ultimately, […]